SOCIAL-ECOLOGICAL IMPERATIVES OF RURAL AREAS’ ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

Abstract

Low standards of people’s living and economic depression in rural areas in Ukraine make it difficult to achieve the systemic integrity of economic, social and environmental components of the sustainable development. The imbalance between these components causes worsening of the environmental harms and deteriorates conditions for the human capital’s reproduction. The purpose of the article is to substantiate with theoretical and practical means the content and structure of social and ecological imperatives, which are represented as norms and standards relating to economic activities aiming to improve the policy of natural resources use and protect the ecosystem’s integrity of the territories.
Economic imperatives reflect a set of rules applied to all economic entities operating within the current regulatory framework. It takes into account various factors and immanent actions. Key challenges, which are most urgent for a society at a certain time and form guidelines for solving problems of social relations and interactions, determine structure and content of social imperatives. Ecological imperatives regulate anthropogenic activity formally and informally and cause changes in the natural environment. They are dynamic and can vary depending on the level of the development of a society, its technologies, welfare, and institutional framework. Laws and principles of the development, summarized in the form of the imperatives, outline the target benchmarks and national priorities on modernization of the economy and improvement of living standards.
Spatial differentiation of the territories takes into account their proximity to urban centers, the degree of economic capacity, the availability of social infrastructure of the proper quality, and meeting environmental standards. One more significant parameter is the availability of assets, which are defined as a set of resources of a territory, the potential and opportunities for their use. The achievement of the national priorities in Ukraine currently is complicated with inefficient use of territorial assets. Social and ecological imperatives are the solid value and normative ground for the development of local policy. One of its obvious steps is the mutually linked differentiation of the priorities, types of the territories and available assets of them.